


The Witch Queen of Nassau

by shirogiku



Series: A Tyranny of Teacups [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: All The Love For Miranda, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Miranda, Angst and Humor, Bleak Beginnings To Happy Endings, Eleanor At Her Finest, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, Gardening, Marcus Aurelius, Massive fix-it, Max Is An Actual Angel, Miranda-Centric, Multi, Nassau, Politics, Post-1x06 AU, Post-VI. AU, Season/Series 01, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-24 00:52:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7486944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirogiku/pseuds/shirogiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After James is captured by the Navy, it falls to Miranda to organise the rescue. Nothing goes according to the plan (AU after 1x06, monster companion to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/7431164"><i>Never a Smooth Sailing</i></a>).</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Witch Queen of Nassau

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DreamingPagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/gifts), [workingonacocktail](https://archiveofourown.org/users/workingonacocktail/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> What if the world isn't so terrible and Miranda *doesn't* die at the end of S2? 
> 
> The tags in [this post ](http://reluming.tumblr.com/post/142592781472/candlewinds-johnsconstantine) wonderfully touch on something we didn't get to see explored, which was Miranda's own anger towards and desire for vengeance against England/civilisation/the world that was suddenly revealed to have betrayed her and her loved ones to an _even greater_ extent than previously thought. 
> 
> Does she become actively involved in the war to come? (does the war still come in the same way? does Charleston still get razed to the ground? probably, Peter's betrayal remained) If so, how does she interact with the other players, who finally *do* get to interact with her (at the very least, planning sessions could still happen in her house; maybe she plays a spy with the new governor, since Rogers would have known about her too if he knew about Flint). What's *her* take on the whole pardons issue of S3? 
> 
> Basically just anything Miranda-related, since she is excellent and the show twice denied her the chance to act on her rage.
> 
>  
> 
>  **A/N:** Hey, OP, yeah, it's been three months since your prompt. I've started various angry Miranda stories, but then this happened, and it's my favourite version of events (where she gets the most to DO and ALL the ladies to interact with), so I hope you like it too :)
> 
> Thank you SO MUCH for all the idea bouncing, DreamingPagan, you've made this happen! :D
> 
>  **A/N 2:** There'll be some explicit-ish stuff at the end :3, and one fade to black, but I don't wanna spoil, sorry :D

Miranda and James’s first big quarrel in exile erupted not over his headlong metamorphosis, nor over the portrait of the halcyon days with which she could not bear to part, their anonymity be damned - but over the food in her house ( _her_ house, as if James would always remain a visitor). Indian corn was the one grain the previous owners had managed to cultivate with any degree of success; as to any other useful plants, if they survived the scorching sun and the lack of water, the island’s mysterious forces of nature - including the children - inexorably finished them off. Miranda _longed_ for fresh flowers and real bread, butter, milk and cheese, having gone months without a meal to relish.

“I can’t help feeling like some poor pilgrim from the _Mayflower_.”

He said nothing, his eyes fixed on his plate for what little appetite it could possibly rouse.

Time and again, she had sworn off lamenting her fate, but wisdom was, in the end, a cold sort of comfort. She had lost so much more than enjoyable dinners, and yet, it was the dark, stringy beef that broke the camel’s back.

“Corn and rice, James! That’s what the Bahamians feed their slaves. The other day, I picked a wild-growing pineapple, and what do you think happened? One of the local women set upon me like a fury - as if I had stolen her firstborn! Now if I do attempt some fruit picking, I must be like a thief in the night.”

He stopped eating, the air around him growing stormier and stormier. “This isn’t your fucking London mansion, Miranda!” The sheer _vehemence_ of it stung like a slap. “Get used to it, for Christ’s sake.”

He could not have got ‘you spoilt aristocrat’ across more clearly even if he had actually shouted it at her.

She rose to her feet. “I may not be in London anymore, as you have so _kindly_ reminded me,” she replied in a voice laced tighter than her stays. “But I refuse to live in squalor _or_ resign myself to it.” She glared at the knife in his hand. “So I will thank you to pick up a fork or take yourself and your horrible meat outside.”

They fumed, they cooled off and then they reconciled, of course. He told her that it had been the best cut, after a litany of sorry’s. She shuddered to imagine what the rest of the cuts had been like. They laughed as she actually tried to stick a fork in, failing miserably.

“A stew,” she mused. “Do you suppose it’ll be better in a stew?”

“It might just surrender to the tyranny of the mighty fork.” That would have certainly lost him his pudding privilege, if there had been any. “Have I ever told you about the gold tooth and-”

Once said, no words could be unsaid.

The English had no culture when it came to vegetables, nothing like the Mediterranean ones. It was all roast beef and pudding, and she was without either. She remembered a Swiss traveller’s account of the Williamsburg area from three years ago: those people, he had complained, paid little attention to anything but lettuce. Dispatching her servants to London’s best fruit and vegetable markets, she had found such complaints amusing, but now, she would sell her soul for some lettuce in her poor excuse of a kitchen garden.

Just as piracy became James’s main pursuit and the minds of his men became his new conquest, so too did self-sufficiency become Miranda’s.

Robert Beverly, a ridiculous person calling himself an Indian, had been an acquaintance of Thomas’s and had shown her husband the final draft of his prospective magnum opus, _The History and Present State of Virginia_. It had been at the vanguard of those printed in the English language _and_ penned by an American-born author. A scion of the planter elite, personally ambitious and at odds with his royal governors, he had written of everything, from the colony’s real Indians and natural history to its current politics and society to its lush gardens. But, as Miranda could also recall, he had praised them on the potential alone.

“A gardening book,” James repeated slowly. “You expect me to fetch you a _gardening book_ from a prize?”

“Whyever not?” They had been studiously avoiding the subject of innocent passengers. “ _Someone_ has got to come prepared.”

“I’ll talk to Gates.”

In the meanwhile, she fell back on her Greeks and Romans. In many ways, the ideals had not changed at all - they had simply been forgotten.

Even so, and despite all the help from the less territorial womenfolk, the first four years were a pure, unadulterated nightmare. The weather was constantly against her; the soil was as tough and hard to please as any dour-faced Puritan, and the wilderness was always creeping back in.

And then, one morning, she woke up to a neat little garden, with well-organised walkways and planting beds, praise the Lord. All of a sudden, she had more vegetable and medicinal herb varieties than any of her neighbours, and could barter and sell. She built her spinach and mixed it with some sugar, cloves, cinnamon and raisins (all courtesy of James), and after he had finally noticed what he was eating, he looked so very _proud_ of her. She had never lived for approbation, but she had missed feeling appreciated.

She had spearmint and sweet violets, hyssop and wild marjoram, the entire herbal patch marked off with round stones from the beach. A stubborn weed would always find a way, but she was prepared to wrestle it out.

One such pest had wedged itself in very close to a good plant. It was soundly beating her in hand-to-hand combat when she heard the approaching riders. She had broken into sweat and had dirt on her apron, her thoughts running towards boiling water, a sure plant killer.

“Mrs. Barlow? A word, if we may?”

These were not James’s usual messengers. “Mr. Gates. What have you got in your cart today?” Not another hostage, she should hope.

His fixed, grim smile gave her an icy chill in her stomach. “News for you, but it’s not an outside kind of talk. And you might want to sit down.”

She invited them in, offering them tea or coffee. Mr. Gates asked for something stronger.

Now, she was not a woman of a morbid disposition, though here, leading this life, ‘morbid’ was rather hard to define. But neither her darkest hours nor her worst nightmares had prepared her for what James’s Quartermaster had to say to her.

His younger companion, Billy, did most of the talking, though. He spoke of a ship called the _Andromache_ , the guns that had been promised to James and never delivered, and finally, the chase

“He fell overboard, ma’am,” Billy said uncomfortably. “We couldn’t turn back, not with the _Scarborough_ bearing down on us. I’m sorry, ma’am.”

Mr. Gates expressed his condolences in somewhat more words, but it was as if her ears had been blocked by seawater.

When Thomas had been taken from her, her whole world had been shattered. She had been filled with a rage beyond measure or reason, such as can turn men into monsters. She had wanted to scream and fight and rip Alfred’s black heart out with her own hand. But Thomas had quoted Virgil at her and had asked her not to leave her and James’s lives in the wound.

Looking at James’s chair, occupied by his Quartermaster, she went curiously numb. Like with laudanum, which she had never favoured, not even for toothache.

“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Barlow,” Mr. Gates was saying, not unkindly. “We’ll have you off the island before anybody knows a thing.”

“Off to where?” Her voice came as if from a great distance.

Boston.

 _Boston_. As she glanced between the two pirates, a terrible understanding dawned on her, her mind echoing with James’s words. Mr. Gates, who had never met James McGraw, must have found out about the letter. _Her_ letter, meant to save them both, serving instead to damn him before his Spanish gold ever could.

“‘ _Fell_ ’?” she cried hysterically. ”What do you take me for, a silly girl?” She surged up. “James was born and bred to sea, gentlemen, and men like him don’t just _fall_ overboard. _You_ pushed him!” She pointed at the boy accusingly. “And you dare face me and speak of my safety!”

“Billy-”

But the boy ignored the warning, a storm of his own brewing in his eyes. He slammed his fists down onto the table before her. “Captain Flint’s gone _mad_ with power!”

“Billy, watch who you’re talking to!”

“He told me we needed a king,” Billy continued, undeterred, “and _he_ is to be that king, lording over us. He told me a war is coming. _Whose_ war, Mrs. Barlow? His? Yours? He’s been lying to his own crew for years, making Mr. Gates, and me too, into his accomplices. Men have _died_ for his schemes, good men. And the real truth of it? He’s been ready to sell us at your first call, all along.” Would that had been so! “ _But I would not kill without a fair trial - not even someone like Flint.”_ He paused, catching his breath. “Because I’m not _like_ him.”

She stepped away from him and his looming truths, gripping the back of her chair. There was, it seemed, some honour among the thieves, after all, just like Thomas had believed, but what good was it to her now?

She shrugged off Mr. Gates’s hand. “Not _my_ war, Mr. Bones. _Your_ war. The one you and your brothers fight every day, going against everything that civilisation stands for. James has a dream… a vision of how to win it. Was he wrong to name himself a king? Perhaps. But even you cannot deny that you lack unity and a broader perspective.” ‘Cohesion’, he had said. “And without unity, there can be no lasting victories.”

“You and your man sure have a funny way of uniting people,” Billy muttered, breaking the eye contact and earning himself a smack from his elder.

“I was wrong,” she forced out. “This state of things has continued for so long that I lost hope. But believe me,” she focused on Mr. Gates as the wiser of the two, “I’ve written that letter without his complicity or knowledge. It was never my intention to turn him into a traitor - I only wanted to save him, a man I love, from himself. It was selfish of me, but we are all selfish creatures. There are no diabolical plots to be found here.”

“We believe you,” Mr. Gates assured her. “Back when he and I first started down this road - well, when he first brought me to your house - he made me promise I’ll take care of you should anything happen to him, no matter what. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He nodded, more to himself than to her. “Your connections in Boston, how reliable are they?”

She poured herself some brandy. “They’re not my connections, I’m afraid. They’re Mr. Guthrie’s connections.”

“Hold on a moment, the pardon was _Guthrie’s_ idea? And you went along with it?”

“I didn’t know!” She spilled the drink. “I only knew what I could see in front of me, and that was a man from a good family, in over his head and wishing to make amends.”

James’s Quartermaster snorted. “As in, a man in a wig? Hell, _I_ could wear a wig - Billy here could wear a wig - but would that make us any less pirate?”

She bit back her immediate retort, and began to think, _really_ think. If the _Andromache_ had delivered the message, would Richard had honoured their deal? And more importantly, would she have been able to persuade James, after that talk of wars and kings?

But even now, she was wondering about the wrong thing: Richard Guthrie had _told_ Hume where to find James’s ship, with James still on board.

So she must hear the whole story, from the very beginning.

Billy went back to James threatening the man in his own house on Harbour Island, at which point, the Navy had shown up. _Without shame, the world is a very dangerous place._ The words had sunk in despite Billy’s best efforts to paint James as the biggest threat to the crew.

“That’s right,” Miranda told him. “Shame is an instrument of control. When you rid yourself of it, there’s no telling what you will do next.”

“My parents were peaceful protesters and pamphleteers,” he replied dryly. “So I might just have a better idea of these things than you think.”

“Fair enough.” She drank a little more, just another mouthful. “I shan’t patronise you, and you won’t patronise me.”

Richard Guthrie’s treachery hit her the hardest - because _she_ had made it possible. Starved for civilised company, she had read to him from _The Meditations_ , and that treacherous scum had used it to manipulate her in her desperation. A pirate boy had shown more integrity than him, and this wasn’t just James’s world. She had to live in it, too.

If only she had realised that sooner.

Pacing around the room, she reached a decision “Some of those things your men say about me and my unholy connection with James aren’t completely off the mark, though.” She held up a bloody bandage - she had cut herself earlier, but _they_ didn’t know that. “It is as fresh as the day I tended to his wounds. _He isn’t dead_.”

Billy’s eyes widened. “Captured by the _Scarborough_ , then! Christ, that’s so much worse!”

“He _is_ a superb swimmer.” She hid the bandage away quickly. “And yes, it won’t be a clean death. They will take him to England.” Her voice neither faltered nor trembled, something to be proud of. “And they will hang him in Execution Dock.” She turned to face her visitors again. “That is a familiar story, no doubt. But do you know what comes after? Their ships and their guns and their cold, impersonal cruelty, scouring New Providence of anyone and everyone who wouldn’t beg for King George’s mercy. For if there is one thing Civilisation can never tolerate, it is defiance of its right social order. Slaves, servants, or masters, but nothing outside that. There shall be no line of defence, nobody to repel the invading force, to get into their heads and turn the tables on them. Unless-”

“Unless?” Hal prompted.

“Unless the _Scarborough_ hasn’t sailed home directly. You are well-versed in these matters.” She inclined her head in deference to his superior knowledge. “What are the chances she went back to Harbour Island first?”

He mulled over it for a moment, ignoring the brandy. “She was sailing lightly. Wouldn’t have taken in too much stores before a chase. So, yes, she’ll be wanting to resupply before the long voyage.”

Billy cut in, “You can’t be serious! He’s the one who started this and got us into this mess!”

“No,” Miranda reiterated firmly, finally remembering James's blood-soaked homecoming after sinking a Navy ship. “The English crown and the Royal Navy have started this. By saving him, you will be saving your crew.”

“Captains have swung before,” he went on, but with less conviction. “Why should one of Captain Flint make such a difference?”

“By God, Mr. Bones! Have you _seen_ in him action? How many more brilliant strategists _do_ you have running around? Do tell!”

“We don’t need him to get the gold, spit it up and retire!”

“Where on earth would you hide after your Nassau is history? Look at what’s happened to Avery’s men! At least a half of them.”

“About that gold,” Mr. Gates said, gesturing for peace. “Without Flint, who’s going to wrestle it from the Spaniards?”

“The _Urca_ has no escort!” Billy’s head bumped into one of the dried herb bundles hanging over the fireplace. “Sorry.”

He could use some of the nerve-soothing ones. They all could. “What if there’s been a change of plans, though? Will you turn back and sail home with nothing? To become the laughing stock of the rest of the crews?”

Mr. Gates pronounced himself much too old for this, but the tide was already turning. After a little more persuasion, in a calmer tone, it occurred to the pair that Miranda should accompany them back into town.

She wondered how to dress for the occasion… before remembering that there was no time but to check her skirt for dirt and grass stains and change her hat. It would have to do. She packed a book, _that_ book, as if it could shield her from another failure. Glancing back at her garden, she had a strong premonition that she would not root out that weed for a long time.

As her luck would have it, the cart drove right past Pastor Lambrick, who was standing in the tall grasses in search of his personal lost Eden. She nodded at him, but he just followed her with his eyes until the blessed bend in the road.

 

* * *

 

Richard Guthrie’s brash daughter was not someone whom Miranda would ever have considered an ally, but one thing was certain - that the girl would need no persuading to get James back. Her office defied Miranda’s expectations, greeting her with a still life painting, a screen she vaguely recognised as too ostentatious and therefore unfit for her own humble abode (oh James), and a general abundance of colour. Miss Guthrie’s red shirt was stark against the pale green window.

There were more hues and tones here than in Miranda’s entire house, and, on her own territory, the girl was a picture of confidence, almost grown-up. Perhaps Miranda shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss her.

“What _the fuck_ are you doing here?”

But then again, perhaps not.

“Where’s the Captain?” asked a bright-eyed young man from the sofa.

Miranda glanced at Mr. Gates - he had indeed delivered the news to her before anyone else, it seemed. “There has been a setback,” she said. Nobody removed the young man from the room, or told her who he was, so she proceeded: “James was captured by the Navy-”

The girl’s ensuing string of curses could have taught a whole ship’s company a thing or two. “So why the fuck are you all here and not going after him?”

She rounded up on Miranda like she was about to hit her.

Miranda did not flinch away. “I’ll own my part of your father’s plot.” Fistcuffs, honestly! “But I was betrayed by him as much as you were.” She knew something of awful fathers.

However, Miss Guthrie wasn’t so quick to believe Miranda’s version of the events.

“What has he got to lose?” The young man sounded incongruously cheerful. “The gold is your and Captain Flint’s joint venture. The island is yours. What does _he_ have, besides the arrest orders hanging over his head?”

“He could’ve been a part of it if only-”

“If only he’d come to you, on your terms, begging for the scraps from your table?” Miranda finished for her. “Men like him never change, and he is a bloody coward. _Help us_ , and you’ll have your gold _and_ your father grovelling at your feet.”

“Help you and whose army?” Miss Guthrie cast a pointed look towards the sofa. “And the schedule can’t even be trusted.”

Ah. Mr. Gates had filled her in on the way, but for some reason, Miranda hadn’t imagined the page thief so young or so good-looking. And behind the earnest air, he was surprisingly difficult to read.

She held out her hand, introducing herself by the tired old ‘Mrs. Barlow’. “For someone so new to Nassau, you have sown a remarkable amount of chaos, Mr. Silver.”

He grinned, shaking it lightly. His palm was neither slippery nor calloused. “You’d be the first not to threaten to kill me for it, ma’am.”

“Presently, I am more interested in saving,” his would-be killer, “lives.” The thief’s life could be included into the deal.

Miss Guthrie’s scouts, spying on her father's island regardless of this new development, confirmed Hal’s guess: the intrepid father had reinstated himself in the grand house, and Captain Hume couldn’t resist the free supplies. The ship was preparing to sail on the next tide, which left them with a window of a few hours.

“Enough,” the girl declared, effectively ending the planning session. “I’ve got other business to attend to, and you three are getting on my nerves.” She fixed Mr. Gates with a look that would embarrass Miranda to try. “Bring us back our best fighting captain.”

“The royal ‘we’?” Miranda mouthed.

“No, the royal ‘we’ and the rest of us unlucky souls.”

The other contenders for the title were: a Jacobite veteran, who, according to Miss Guthrie, ‘would shit himself going against the Navy’, and Charles Vane, a more frequent target of James’s curses. Miss Guthrie had just driven the latter out, but that was good news - if he had still been here, he would have been on the beach, breaking James’s crew apart.

Mr. Gates glanced heavenwards, then picked up the charts and house plans that the girl had so graciously handed over. “Have I mentioned I‘m too old for this?”

Miranda smiled at him. “You’ve mentioned a wig, but personally, I am having trouble with the idea of you as a callow youth.”

He laughed. “Nah, I was born an old man, head as shiny as an apple.”

“How _are_ you planning to sell our plan to the men?” He raised his eyebrows. “Please, I may have done my best to abstract myself, but I couldn’t help overhearing about some of your woes.”

“We’ll tell them like it is,” Billy said, rejoining them. “No more lies.”

“If I may,” the page thief piped in. “In my experience, a _small_ lie could go a long way towards solving a big problem.”

“Your experience like getting caught?” Billy asked sarcastically.

“Suppose you tell them only about Richard Guthrie?” Miranda suggested.

He frowned. “What’s he to them?”

“Someone who is fully capable of convincing Hume to stay a little longer and ambush you with your gold.”

The lad swore under his breath, not having thought of that.

“Miss Guthrie hasn’t said anything about leaving the house intact,” said Hal. “Do you think she’d mind some purely _accidental_ damage?”

“She knows the stakes,” was Miranda’s reply.

“I’m still confused.” Billy glared at Mr. Silver. “What are we supposed to be lying about here, again?

Mr. Silver shrugged. “How should I know? It was just an idle thought of an broad-minded fellow.”

He was, sadly, a minority onto himself. The fear and mistrust on the men’s faces very nearly sent Miranda back into the interior with her tail between her legs. But it came to her that she would rather stand here, pretending not to hear _these_ murmurs, than listen to what Pastor Lambrick would have to say to her about James.

Mr. Gates assigned her a bodyguard, a tall, taciturn Asian man. In the early days, Hal commented, Joji had been looking after James too.

 _"James_ needed a bodyguard?” she marvelled.

“Don’t ever tell him I said that.” Hal winked at her before walking off.

Mr. Silver attempted to linger, but Billy got hold of him and dragged him away to ‘peel potatoes’.

Miranda could only hope that it wasn’t pirate lingo for something more sinister. “Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?” ‘Joji’ didn’t sound like a Chinese name to her, and he was very tall. “The Spice Islands?”

He understood the question, but after a pause, he made a gesture against his throat. Mute, or pretending to be, at any rate. James would have spun such a tall tale out of it: ‘When Joji speaks, good Englishmen go deaf and blind.’ Or: ‘He only speaks of treasure’.

“I was wondering if you were from Formosa,” she joked. At his blank expression, she explained, “It’s from this ridiculous book by a man called Psalmanazar. An utter, shameless inventor, mind you. According to him, Formosans strut around unclothed and with a gold or silver plate for a fig leaf, live underground and eat feathered serpents.” A great deal of human sacrifice had also been mentioned, but she decided that she’d better leave that out. Just in case.

By the time the left side of Joji’s mouth betrayed the barest of twitches, the pirates had finished organising themselves. Mr. Silver reappeared to whisper in Miranda’s ear that they had a sharpshooter.

“That is… useful?” She would really like James to come back now and save her the trouble of plotting out any more assassinations.

“Ah, Mr. Silver, there you are!” The young thief swallowed nervously as Mr. Gates clapped him on the back. “You stay right here, you hear me? No more of that running away nonsense, or Joji will introduce you to-” Hal caught Miranda’s eyes, “... unspeakable things.” Joji nodded grimly, a rare reliable man kept away from the fray on her - and, she realised, even more on Mr. Silver’s account.

And yet, never had a man looked more relieved. With the rescue party having finally departed, there was nothing else for it but to wait.

“You wish could’ve gone with them,” the page thief observed. “No, not you, Joji.” He fidgeted as if to hide in Miranda’s shadow.

Was it that obvious?

She wished and wished and wished, and what had come of it? Had she summoned this strange boy with her will to pry James away from his ruin?

“I could have used new curtains,” she quipped awkwardly.

“You don’t strike me as a looter, Mrs. Barlow.”

“Not yet.” Didn’t the books count?

“There’s nothing wrong with _not_ wanting to be a pirate, you know. Personally, as soon as I have my share, I’m out of here.” Joji bumped into him pointedly. “No offense!”

“Where will you go?” A deceptively simple question…

… which gave him a pause. “Somewhere, anywhere.” He shrugged. “There are other ports and other islands.”

How could a world so big offer so little refuge?

“And what will you do with the gold? Hide it in your mattress?”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve just thought of opening a tavern of my own.”

“Wherever shall you find another Miss Guthrie to run it for you?”

He did not shudder at the prospect, but neither did he seem particularly enthused. “Did you know, the best place for tea around here is-?”

“Either Her Ladyship’s office or the brothel.” It did not take much guesswork.

He put on every appearance of being impressed. “Shall we?”

That would be a fine way to while away the rescue indeed. And yet, Miranda had done all that she could, hadn’t she? Thomas couldn’t have expected her to bedeck herself with swords and pistols and march into battle like some frenzied Viking woman?

“Do they charge more for the tea or for the company?” she asked.

Joji remained stoically uninvolved, the mark of a real bodyguard from any country or era.

The Madame was a strikingly handsome young woman, from head to toe. Mr. Silver double-took, and Miranda made yet another note in her mental journal. The young woman’s name was Max, and she was as busy as Mr. Silver was impressed, but for the moment, Miranda simply welcomed being out of the sun. Watching Joji feed the parrot proved to be a grand extra entertainment.

The first impression had been deceiving. Miranda and Max spoke at length in French, tea becoming a bottle of wine. Paris, Miranda thought. That was where she would go.

“You must have been so lonely out there,” Max said bluntly when Mr. Silver was out of the earshot. “You should have come to us.”

These people must be conspiring to surprise her at every turn. “James thought it too dangerous.” And she had her ever-vigilant neighbours to consider.

“ _Oui_.” Max’s smile was painfully forced. ”But you can die of loneliness, you know?”

Max herself could not have that many friends.

“ _Oui, c'est vrai._ ” Max’s eyes strayed towards a beautiful girl with a painted Venus’s bosom, who had been trying to eavesdrop on them for some time now. “You seem very friendly with... Captain Flint’s new cook, is it?”

“I have only just met him.”

“Max minds her own business.” She raised her glass. “But her business is to know little things about men. Like where that one goes, trouble follows.”

Miranda smiled wistfully. “I have some experience dealing with men like that, as you can imagine.”

“But do they ever clean up the messes they leave behind?”

Meeting Anne Bonny and Jack Rackham concluded Miranda’s circuit of Nassau, Joji and the red-haired girl mirroring each other perfectly. A woman dressed like that, doing the things that these men did. In the space of a few hours, Miranda had gone from complete isolation to breaking bread with the thieves. James would have a fit.

She found herself mentally rehearsing that future conversation.

“Stay in town,” he would growl. “Doing _what_ , exactly?”

Whatever was required. Smoothing things over. Like she used to do in London. She used to be so much more than some sailor’s wife, always wishing and waiting, waiting and wishing.

They never got to have that conversation.

“I have some good news and some bad news,” said Hal, attempting a lighter tone. “Oh to hell with it, he’s gone. The _Scarborough_ has given us the slip, she has.”

They had sparked up a mutiny alright, but the Marines had quashed it ruthlessly. Their only consolation prizes were the guns dropped off to gain more speed, and Mr. Guthrie, whom Billy manhandled as if to make up for his previous indecision.

It was over. All of it.

“Beauclerc shot Captain Hume,” Hal added. “That son of a bitch won’t be catching any more pirates.”

More blood on Miranda and James’s hands. She was whisked along into Miss Guthrie’s office, the numbness threatening to crush her under its weight this time around.

No, let the blame fall where it ought to first - _the Guthries_ had caused this. Richard Guthrie had finished what Alfred Hamilton had started ten years ago.

“What choice did I have?” he protested. “If you had gone to Boston like we had agreed, and you,” he looked at his daughter, “had closed up shop here like you were supposed to, none of this would have been necessary!” The girl punched him, and for once, Miranda cheered.

Her own fingers curled into something ugly, claw-like. There was a letter opener lying on the desk; she saw herself plunging it into his neck, the blood spurting from the open wound. Her mad fantasy must have reflected in her eyes, because abruptly, his accusations gave way to pleas for their mercy.

“What is it that he hates the most in the world?” Miranda asked her strange accomplice. “Disgrace in Boston?”

“I’m not shipping him off to the rest of the family, he’d just start plotting against me all over again.”

“Eleanor, please-”

And then Miranda had it: “Make him sign the articles.” Miss Guthrie went very still. “ _Any_ articles.”

“You must be joking!” he exclaimed.

“Not at all.” The girl broke into a slow, self-satisfied smirk. “And once you are a pirate, you’ll damn well do as I please.” She did not spare another look for Miranda, but Miranda had expected nothing less.

She drew a breath, and stepped out of the office. Everything after that was a bit of a blur. Instead of thinking about her future, that horrible barren stretch, she went back to Max’s.

Max put a heavier bottle on the table. “Or would you like something to smoke?”

“No, I’m good with something to drink.”

She wasn’t good at all, nor did she want to be.

It was pitch black outside when Max gently helped her to her feet, guiding her upstairs. Idelle was also there, eyeing Miranda speculatively. “On the house.”

“No, I-” It wasn’t the right way to grieve.

But what _was_ the right way, bathing yourself in blood? She had already missed out on that one. At least she wouldn’t have to wake up alone in the morning, and Max was determined to keep her from wandering off and doing something infinitely stupider.

Idelle touched Miranda’s hair, freeing it from the pins. “We all have our sob stories, ma’am.”

“Miranda. Please call me Miranda.” She looked at Idelle properly. “And I’m sick and tired of sobbing about my story.”

 

* * *

 

The morning came, as mornings were wont to do, and with it, Mr. Silver, here to fetch her for a strategy meeting.

She blinked, patting down her ill-fitting dress. ‘A strategy meeting? Me?’ was the extent of her thoughts on the matter.

“To put it plainly,” he said, straddling a chair, “Miss Guthrie was dead against it.” Of course she was. “But there are also parties who wish to have you on board. Er, not literally, but yes.”

“Who on earth would want an angry, grieving woman in their ranks?” Certainly not Mr. Gates.

Silver wagged his eyebrows. “How about me? You see, Miss Guthrie has an island, or at least, a town with a fort, but no means of securing it, not in the long run. And the man in that fort doesn’t even like her very much.” The boy was _fast_ , she had to give him that. “Mr. Gates and Billy have a ship full of men who have been promised treasures untold, but no captain and no schedule to make good on that promise. _I_ have the schedule. Max has got herself a captain-”

“What, Jack?” That silly bravado and those foppish sideburns, commanding _James’s_ ship?

“And _you_ have the power to turn men like Jack into dreaded captains like Flint.”

She did? “Don’t be absurd! What power, after James’s capture?”

“Aha!” He held up his finger. “But was it your fault, or did _he_ disobey your wishes and ignore your warnings? Because from where I’m sitting, it seems to me you can either follow him and maybe, just _maybe_ kiss his cold dead body goodbye,” her nails dug into her palms, “ _or_ you can stay right here, and we’re talking half the Captain’s share you’d still be entitled to, _and_ keep his memory alive.” He smiled at her. “There’s a new power vacuum in Nassau, Mrs. Barlow, and I do believe you’re the best woman for the job.”

The devil himself could not have sounded more seductive.

He _was_ a dangerous man, that Mr. Silver - he made you believe the impossible possible. But belief was better than endless doubt.

She walked over to the window. “My husband would have liked to meet you. Yes, you may take that as a compliment.”

The _Urca_ ’s gold was going to tear them all to pieces. An invisible enemy was an enemy easily drowned out in rum, and this place had such a short memory. Someone had to serve as a reminder, and another someone keep an eye on this boy.

“Nose out of my bag,” she told him sternly, picking it up by the strap. “And I have run out of patience for double-crossing last night.”

He beamed at her. “Why, Miranda, I do think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”

“That’s Mrs. Barlow for you,” she replied perversely.

 

* * *

 

“We need to get that fucking gold,” the Guthrie girl was saying. “But listening to you lot, I’m starting to think you’re all secret dons.” Always such a shining beacon of eloquence. The other two seats in the Runt Parliament were taken by Captain Hornigold, puffing on his pipe and swelling with self-importance, and by the inestimable Mr. Gates, stuck in the circle of Hell known as Mediating Between Sisyphus and the Hill. They had been in session for a couple of hours now, according to Silver.

Miranda’s cue to make her entrance. She glanced at her impromptu political advisor, who held up his thumbs. If he had tried that with James… She smiled a little, feeling if not lighter, then at least more determined. The Holy Grail their treasure was not, nor would it redeem any of them, but James’s last quest must not be in vain.

“May I suggest a solution to your problem?” Far from disheartening her, the cold reception invigorated her. She used to thrive in opposition, and she would thrive again.

She laid out the final version of the plan before the trio, saving her deference for the seniors. That should cheer them up, and all platitudes would be lost on Miss Guthrie anyway.

“You can’t just swap Flint for someone like _Rackham_ ,” the girl fumed. “You don’t know a thing about how this whole voting business works, do you?”

“I do, however, know a thing or two about superstition, especially among seamen.”

“The fuck did you do? And where’s Silver?”

Limited time did not necessarily lend itself to creativity. Miranda mouthed a silent apology to Hal, just as her accomplice continued showing off the frog that used to be Billy.

Everybody’s faces in that moment should have been painted and framed.

“I may be kidding _you_ , Miss Guthrie,” Miranda said serenely. And she might well be risking an angry mob. “But nobody wants to be next to fall prey to the dark arts.”

Mr. Gates managed a laugh. “Alright, alright, but where _is_ Billy? Really?”

“Oh, shopping around, watching Joji sharpen his sword, that sort of thing.” He breathed out in relief, then remembered to disapprove of her and Silver giving Joji the slip. “He’ll be back after they ask for it nicely.”

“You are a devious woman, Mrs. Barlow,” said Hornigold, addressing her directly for the first time.

“Thank you, Captain,” she replied. “Mr. Rackham is a devious man. Who knows, perhaps you shall enjoy sailing in consort with someone who errs on the side of caution and doesn’t seek to undermine you and unbalance your partnership at every turn.”

He smoked on, like he hadn’t a bloody clue what to make of her, but Mr. Gates’s smile and nod, and Miss Guthrie’s irritation, almost palpable, tipped the scales in Miranda’s favour.

“Just one last question,” Hal whispered, gesturing her aside. “Why? Yesterday, you wanted nothing to do with us, and I _dare_ you to try and tell me I’m wrong. Now you’re in the thick of it and painting a target on yourself in red.” He shook his head. “I should’ve known you and him would be two peas from the same pod.”

“Perhaps because I am tired of losing people and being whisked away to the ends of the earth. Or perhaps, in your own language, an empty pod can make a boat, with the right mast and sail.”

John Silver was more a street performance than a man when he was so fired up. Before long, Miranda received a unanimous petition to restore the _Walrus’s_ Quartermaster to his original shape.

“I thought you were the Quartermaster,” she mouthed to Gates, confused.

“Don’t tell Ben - that’s Hornigold.”

“Goodness, you men and your politics.”

At the same time, Max had been buttering up her part of the bargain. Such rites called for a whole coven, and their fourth, a blonde girl called Charlotte, sat in her corner with the look of utter bafflement.

“Will I have to be naked for this?” was Jack’s most pressing question. “That is, I have no problem with being naked, but-”

“Is he still goin’ to get it up, afterwards?” Anne demanded to know, fixing Miranda with a death glare.

“Oh, uh, yes, if anything, his, ah, _virility_ shall only grow, Miss Bonny.”

“I’ve been called many things,” Anne said darkly. “But ‘Miss’ means you and I will have a problem.”

“Understood.”

“Grow like get bigger?”

Billy was convinced that Miranda’s grudge against him _was_ real and moreover, she had really hexed. She swore to Mr. Gates that she had done no such thing, and silently prayed that the lad would not fall overboard out of his new paranoia.

“The frog was good,” said Silver. “But now we need something that’ll last us to the _Urca_ and back.”

She had steeled herself for weeks’ worth of sailing, but in reality, it was only a matter of days.

Even so, “Something like a ghost.”

“The ghost of Captain Flint, roaming the ship in the dead of night.” He paused. “That can be arranged!”

“Mind you don’t spook Billy into losing his footing.”

“Oh, Billy will help me get his coat!”

James must be rattling his chains somewhere out there already.

The final plea to cease and desist came from a temporarily forgotten quarter. Miranda was not unaware of Mr. Scott’s part in Richard Guthrie’s plot, nor was he of hers in turning Richard pirate. Having publically blessed the consortium and handed the town back to his daughter, he had withdrawn to seek solace in drink.

“Are you a free man, Mr. Scott?”

“Chattel property of the Guthrie estate, ma’am.”

Good grief, she had meant that a lot more metaphysically. The Bahamians weren’t kind to their slaves. Even his name, where had it come from? Building this town up from the rubble, it must have taken a lot of mental acrobatics, not that she was in any position to know or judge.

“I hope you find your freedom one day, because that’s what I wish for myself and Nassau.”

“You cannot be free from death,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes. “No more than you can be free from love.”

You really couldn’t, could you? Was she honouring their memory, or was she doing her penance, atoning for not having protected them from themselves?

No, no more doubt. Those ships _must_ sail.

“ _It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live_ ,” she quoted. “To me, freedom is knowing myself and having a choice. Even if it’s a choice where to make my last stand.”

He nodded, resigned to yet another woman’s inexorable whims. “Since you have chosen to make your last stand here, may I suggest you hire a more permanent bodyguard?”

“Have you got anyone in particular in mind?” It _would_ be wise, but she also fully expected a spy.

Still, two could play this game.

 

* * *

 

More of the things that almost nipped their enterprise in the bud: Mr. Silver’s trouble with Randall, the previous cook. If Miranda really _could_ turn people into frogs, the _Walrus_ would be manned by them exclusively.

“It’s a ship killer out there,” said Miss Guthrie above the storm stomping its heavy boots like James in a temper. “If you’re actually planning to do some black magic, now’s the time.”

Miranda had come in right after Mr. Scott had left. But whatever positive effect the apparent reconciliation might have had on Miss Guthrie, it went out of the window the moment she saw Miranda.

“I’m not here to apologise for… anything, in fact,” Miranda told her. “But I _will_ do everything in my power to make James’s,” and Thomas’s, “dream a reality.”

“I lose my best captain, and in exchange, I get a half-cocked witch with a small bag of tricks and a dress borrowed from the brothel.” The impudent girl rolled her eyes. “Thrilled to be working with you.”

Miranda bit on the inside of her lip. “In the words of a wise man, _Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart._ ”

“Horseshit,” was the girl’s verdict. “Some of the biggest I’ve ever heard.”

The greatest trial on Miranda’s patience was not even this foul-mouthed creature, but her own inability to go back and pack properly. That Pastor Lambrick would come into town eventually she did not doubt, but still, she would rather face him never than sooner.

Max handed Miranda a small book that must have been rebound at least twice. “We always read on stormy nights like this. Perhaps you would like to join us?”

“You know, Max, you must secretly be an angel.” Thomas would have liked her, too.

Max paused, studying her uncertainly. Detecting no traces of sarcasm, however, she looped her arm through Miranda’s and took her to the alcove where the rest of the girls were already gathered.

In the morning, she went looking for rooms to rent, somewhere on the neutral territory. Her search ended ignobly at the sight of Mrs. Knowles and Mrs. Ingham, who were very obviously scanning the crowd. She flattened herself against the wall in a schoolgirl fashion.

“Mrs. Barlow?” a feminine voice asked, making her jump. The speaker was a black girl, regarding her skeptically. “I’m Eme, your new bodyguard.”

She was wearing more or less the same set of clothing as the men standing guard in the tavern. It fit her about as well as Miranda’s borrowed article fit her, but she was armed. What a pair they would make.

“It’s nice to meet you, Eme.” She held out her hand. “Have you worked as a bodyguard before?”

“No,” the girl replied, without shaking hands. “My father was a witch doctor.” Gracious! “And my mother a witch.”

That sounded like a prime family drama material. “In that case, I have even more to learn from you than I would have thought.”

If you asked Idelle, voodoo dolls were the answer to everything, and everybody believed in them.

The wait was less excruciating than it might have been, and then it was already over. They filed out onto the beach, the Guthrie girl at the helm. Their smiles froze as they realised that the second sail on the horizon was not the _Ranger_ but something far bigger and far more aggressively Catholic, her guns blazing.

“ _A fucking man-o’war_! This is what you call the devil’s luck?”

“They haven’t been sunk yet, have they?” Miranda looked at the fort. “Is there anyone left in there to return the fire?”

Eleanor groaned. “Where’s the old lady when you need him?”

And so, the town’s defenders were to be a ragtag crew of whoever else had the remotest idea of what a cannon was. Eleanor personally lit a fuse, at the risk of blowing herself to smithereens.

“Stop looking at me like that,” the girl snapped. “I’ve fired a gun before, alright?”

A stalemate. They couldn’t hit the Spaniards, and the Spaniards wouldn’t leave without the contents of the _Walrus’s_ cargo hold.

Jack had managed to load roughly half the gold lying around on the beach before the guard dog had come back and pounced; alas, Beauclerc couldn’t shoot everybody at once. Mr. Silver was nowhere to be found.

“Are you a gambling woman?” Jack asked Miranda.

“I can’t seem to avoid it.”

“Well, then, your bet is as good as anyone’s - who’s going to run out of shot first?”

“We are?

It rained down on the beach, fortunately with no casualties, and Jack got the bright idea to reuse it, which resulted in some severe burns before they figured it out. Nobody raised the question of returning the gold - and at any rate, once it was done, what was to stop the raid from happening anyway?

“No, I can’t turn them all into frogs at this distance,” Miranda repeated patiently.

“We could always row you closer,” was Eleanor’s way of thinking.

Fortunately for Miranda, the sun began to set and the Spaniards decided to have their delayed siesta. Jack was abuzz with increasingly more improbable boarding schemes.

What would James do? Well, apart from not manning the fort like they had done. There was something to that idea of rowing over, though. Not to surrender, of course, but to open negotiations as a cover for Jacks’s stratagem.

“I’m here, I’m here!” Silver doubled over to catch his breath. “You needed me?”

“Where _were_ you?”

“In the brig. It’s a bit of a long story - the ghost of Captain Flint has let me out.”

How uncharacteristically helpful of him. “Do you speak Spanish?”

“No a word, ma’am.”

“You’ll be mute, then. Someone get me a veil! Black, not pink!”

Doña Mencía de Calderón and her somewhat younger husband ( _mute_ ) had been captured for ransom. As an olive branch, they were being released with a message to the Spanish captain.

“That’s the craziest scheme I’ve ever heard,” said Mr. Gates. “And I’m saying that as someone who’s sailed with your James for a whole prison sentence.”

“It’ll never work,” Eleanor put in her two pieces of bullion.

“Can I say a couple of words, at least? A greeting?”

“ _No_ ,” three voices replied in unison.

Miranda’s confidence in being able to pass herself off as a Spanish noblewoman stemmed from a simple question: what did they have to lose? She did ask Eme to stay behind, not wanting to wager another life on a desperate plot.

The man-o’war’s deck was crowded with such a rough-looking sort that she would have taken them not even for sea rovers but for turtlers or loggers.

An awkward pause followed their arrival.

“You’re Captain Vane,” Silver breathed out, staring at the apparent ringleader.

“Yeah, and who the fuck are you?” was Charles Vane’s reply.

His men had boarded the ship back when the fire had dropped. He had been waiting to see what they would do next, as in how quickly they would surrender. The whole party rowed back ashore for Eleanor’s reaction.

It was very stoic, that long-anticipated reaction.

“Got myself a new ship,” Vane prompted.

She glared at him. “I’m not fucking blind.”

“Where’s your best mate?”

Miranda pulled off the moth-eaten black veil, swearing to burn it. “He is still with us in the spirit.”

“The fuck you-” He trailed off like a man who had just been robbed of his new ship _and_ three galleons.

Jack stepped to the fore, caught between fear and swagger. Anne merely seemed disappointed by the lack of action. Or maybe that was her version of fear.

“Captain, may I introduce you to Mrs. Barlow, our new head witch?”

Vane laughed. “Wait, that wasn’t a joke?” He glanced between Eleanor and Miranda curiously, Miranda meeting his eyes calmly.

She had seen worse things than one savage.

He threw his arm around Jack’s shoulders, radiating goodwill. “Anyway, you all owe me a drink for saving your arses.”

“Cyanide or arsenic?” Eleanor asked sweetly.

Discretely, Miranda gestured for Beauclerc to stand down. “Eleanor, a word? In your office.”

Outside the door, Eme caught Silver at eavesdropping. Eleanor took a long swig from a nondescript bottle and turned the full force of her anger on Miranda. “How could you just fucking stand there and say that he’s gone?”

“I haven’t actually said that, in case you haven’t noticed.” By God, how had she failed to see it before? This wasn’t peas and pods, James and this girl were long-lost twins separated at birth when it came to their temper, coping mechanisms and impulse control!

Miranda sat down heavily. “Until James escapes and makes his way back to us, Vane _is_ the next best thing. Or the worst thing, as it were. The _Ranger_ has either sunk or deserted, and Jack is very… unformed. He has the right ideas, but no discipline or clarity of mind yet.”

“Have you _seen_ Charles’s new men? Fucking animals, starting with him!”

Miranda rested her gaze on the back of Eleanor’s chair. It was a fine piece of furniture, in an excellent condition, the golden ornaments depicting a couple in Tudor-style clothings. “Actually, the majority would be Spanish sailors. As of today.”

Eleanor paused. “That’ll _never_ work. Loggers and Spaniards on the same ship, ha.”

“I know about Max.” From the source, in fact. Eleanor’s face closed off again, and Miranda hated to do this all the more for it. “But more people than him are implicated. Silver, Jack, Anne, you, and even James. Incidentally, Nassau needs those same people to function. A ferocious guard dog is kept on a chain for a reason. See to it that the chain never grows visible again, and I’ll see to my role in Nassau’s future. Do we have an understanding?”

Eleanor looked at her searchingly. “You’ve been in town for less than a week, and Max has already told you all her secrets?”

She chuckled. “Not _all_ of them.” She rose to leave. “For instance, she is yet to tell me the exact coordinates of your good side, though I suspect, it’s a whole new schedule.” She added at the door: “I was hoping we could go riding tomorrow, just you and I. We have much yet to discuss.”

Downstairs, the tale of the chase - with Miranda and Flint’s ghost pulling the strings from the shadows - was gathering an impressive audience, including Richard. Miranda caught Silver by the elbow and maneuvered him away before anyone punched him in his pretty face.

“When the gold wasn’t there, I really thought they’d kill me,” he whispered miserably.

“What stopped them?”

“You.” She blinked. “I told them your black magics turned the storm against the _Urca_ and wrecked her. And I was right! Also, Billy was a real hero, holding the men together like that. Mr. Gates got drunk.”

“It’s a good thing Billy isn’t a frog, then.” Three more days, and she might stop being irrationally angry at him for not catching James in his fall.

The festive spirit swept through the town; indeed, there was much to celebrate. Tomorrow, they could be at one another’s throats again, but tonight, they were unbeatable.

Max refilled Miranda’s glass. “You should feel proud, _mon amie_. Without you, who knows what would have happened?”

Jack overheard that. “Exactly! Who else would think of dressing up as Doña Something or The Other?”

“Remember the French duchess, Jack?” came from the shadows.

Jack grimaced. “Darling, _please_.”

Anne was to chatty people like Jack and Silver what a fiddle was to an orchestra. Nevertheless, the mood had found her, too: “There was this ship, a merchantman bound for Martinique or something. Heavily armed. Jack says, _subterfuge_ , except, who’s going to wear the gown?” Jack raised his hands in supplication, babbling over her speech. “So, we shave off his precious sideburns and he’s de Something or the Other.” Miranda laughed right there and then. “No, that ain’t the best part. The best part is when he finds the water closet.”

“Oh my God,” Miranda breathed out.

“At sea, privacy for your bowels is a luxury,” Jack declared weightily, “not something to be taken for granted.”

The French captain’s water closet had a door that could be shut, windows with a splendid view, soft scrap-paper, and so on and so forth - Jack had been ready to compose an eulogy on the spot. More importantly, while waiting to be rescued by his mates, he had discovered a hidden compartment in the panelling, with gold, gemstones and an excellent sword.

Miranda wiped the tears from her eyes. “You’re a gift to us all, Captain Rackham.”

“Ain’t I just?” he parried, parodying Anne’s accent.

“What happened to the sword?

“He lost it at cards straightaway,” Anne concluded mercilessly.

Max and Idelle rolled their eyes, Eme peeling another fruit and Mr. Gates passing by to say:

“Remember how I said I’m too old for this? Well, I bloody well am.”

Miranda offered to marry him off to a nice French duchess or perhaps a Spanish noblewoman and set him up in her old house.

“You are a right terror, Mrs. Barlow,” whispered Billy, creeping in - which was a feat considering his height.

She smiled like _she_ hadn’t just had a fright herself. “I have much yet to learn of the sea and of treasure hidden in water-closets, Mr. Bones.” Her current situation reminded her of London’s favourite pastime, gathering round to watch a catastrophe unfold.

Some secrets never came to light, if anything, because it amused Vane to watch his former Quartermaster strutting about James’s deck more than the alternative would have done. Everybody breathed a lot more easily after Vane went raiding, hurricanes or no hurricanes.

Mr. Silver was waiting for his share, but Mr. Dufresne had put him to the _very_ bottom of the list, and Miranda was definitely powerless to assist him there (yes, she was). She, for her part, compensated Eleanor for Eme, rented a house next to the brothel and otherwise went shopping. There was still plenty of money left for the cause.

”Busy is a good look on you, Mrs. Barlow,” Silver commented. “Much better than grieving.”

“‘Miranda,’” she allowed. “Oh for Heaven's sake!”

Pastor Lambrick had installed himself on what passed for the central square. Instead of a prayer-book, he was holding a portrait, his sermon a gruesome story - that of an adulteress, a witch, and, finally, a husband-killer. Twice now, counting James, whom she had driven to piracy with her wickedness.

“Oh, that’s even better than Billy the Frog.” Silver caught her by the arm. “Miranda, no!”

“Let go of me, damn you!”

He spoke on rapidly: “I’d be the last to get between a woman and her murderous urges, but have you thought this through at all?”

“I am _not_ leaving my husband in those filthy hands!”

“Of course you aren’t!” He caught her eyes. “But there is a way that _doesn’t_ involve a mob at your door.”

Even if there was, she could not see it. “I am listening.”

It started small. A couple of street urchins of the right age, soon to be joined by a respectable merchant’s son. A clergyman was always suspect of such things. John’s imagination did so run towards the gutter.

Disgraced, the pastor fled the island, with enough eye witnesses to counter all suspicion of murder most foul.

“You’re welcome.” Miranda gave Silver a _look_ , and his smirk faded. “Sorry, it was the least I could do.”

Thomas was watching her from the canvas. What would he make of her now, the things that she had done? Would do yet? “James never approved of keeping it.” She started wrapping it up in fabric again. “But I couldn’t let go of the past.”

She had been strong for Thomas, Thomas and James, and then James, on his own. She could be strong for Nassau, but she still wasn’t sure whether the place deserved that or not. Not yet. But she could also be strong for herself - that required no conditions, no small print, no bargains with the devil.

“If it’s any consolation,” Silver said. “Now that the cat is out of the bag, you won’t have to burn it.”

She glared at him. “I wouldn’t have burnt it for an army of Lambricks!”

The seeds of witchcraft bore fruit fast. Frogs and voodoo dolls, grimoires and secret poisons, black dogs lurking in the dark, naked women flying across the sky, witch-Sabbaths, and the Devil himself walking the streets. In broad daylight, such talk was easy to dismiss. But after nightfall, reason ended and their reign began. One of Miranda could have been dethroned, but women from the interior were trickling to her in ones and twos, and she welcomed those who were sincere in their wish to shrug off their yoke.

“You are not a spiteful person,” Eme observed as Idelle was having a bit too much fun with a voodoo doll at the other end of the room.

“What makes you think so?” Miranda asked.

“You have drawn a line in the sand, and you never cross it.”

What would crossing it entail? Actually boiling an infant for breakfast? Or demanding bloody tributes? Max and Jack had already turned his latest send-off into a sheer circus. “Like Max always says, you can’t trust sand.”

“You don’t have to, if you trust yourself.”

Miranda glanced at the book on her makeshift desk.

 

* * *

 

Three months later, she was penning a letter to Mr. Underhill. As predicted, New Providence remained unprovided for, and the status quo would hold until such a time as a new governor should arrive.

“ _You are alone_ ,” she wrote. Let that sink in. “ _And your choice is simple: remain alone and fear the shadows in your own house, or accept that the world has shifted beneath your feet and learn to change with it.”_

“‘ _We can help_?’” She paused. “Or is that too much? John?”

He was out, and through the window, she could see why: Vane’s red-crossed monstrosity was back. In Eleanor’s office, he wouldn’t stop complaining about the other half being gone.

“Of course it wasn’t there!” Eleanor glared around. “Hornigold took it.”

Miranda looked at Silver questioningly, and he shrugged in a ‘what-can-you-do’ sort of way.

Eleanor went on, “I knew it the moment I saw that his fucking chair was missing. He’s gone and bought himself a pardon in Port Royal.” A moment of cursing. “So the next time you see him, he’ll be a privateer.” The word tasted like a particularly sour lemon, by the looks of it

Vane brightened up. “So I can sink the fucker, yeah?”

 

* * *

 

Another three months passed much in the same fashion, which was not to say that it had not been a sword-swallowing act on a hot sand. A fresh batch of paintings arrived, and the poor man found himself accosted by the three most dreaded women in Nassau, who were more than ready to duel one another to death over a particularly fetching work of art.

Miranda’s heart skipped a beat as she fully recognised it. Van Dyck’s _Amarillis and Mirtillo_ , which she had strategically positioned below the _Bacchus and Ariadne_ in the parlour. It came to her in a flash, a memory so vivid that it robbed her of breath.

“Miranda?” Max asked worriedly. “What is it?”

“I know that painting,” she forced out. “I used to have one like it in my home in London.” She began examining it obsessively.

If you asked Eleanor, no picture existed in only _one_ copy. But that was the catch: it _was_ the exact same work, having travelled the world before returning to her.

Later, she cried in Max’s arms, but afterwards, she felt a kindling of hope.

Clearing up the derelict governor’s house was Jack’s idea: there was nowhere else to hold the tentative peace talks with the planters. Miranda supervised the joint decorating effort, her and Eleanor’s fights over the china and silverware ringing across the street. Vane dropped a teacup to see what would happen, and they struck an instant (if temporary) truce against the invading forces of masculinity.

“You know, for somebody who rallies so much against civilisation,” he said, “you sure are attached to its frills and fripperies.”

“Like you detest Navy captains, but wouldn’t think to go by any other word.” She glanced around, noting that the curtains would have to be changed again. “But I’ll be fighting over my best china to my dying day.”

“What about your second best?”

Silver crouched down to collect the pieces. “Incidentally and apropos of nothing, the musicians are here.”

She had, frankly, lost track of whose idea it had been to turn the dinner into a full-on assembly, but now, she couldn’t be stopped.

Captain Naft proved to be nearly the only man capable of a proper dancing step, with Jack showing some promise. James had been a terrible dancer, and he and Thomas a complete disaster as an item. Anne watched the proceedings in a mixture of mistrust and puzzlement until Max led her away to practice tete-a-tete. Jack sighed with such weariness as comes only to lovers.

“If I may… one person cannot be a whole world to another,” Miranda said in an undertone. “Once you realise that, you’ll be amazed what bright sides you can discover.”

Jack sighed again. “Well, at least they aren’t sticking needles into little voodoo Jacks together. Max tells me those dolls are actually an English folk tradition… They aren’t, though, are they?”

“Absolutely not.” Miranda leaned in to whisper in his ear: “If anyone ever makes a voodoo doll of you, it shall be me.”

The girls had presented Miranda with a new gown, almostly exactly _her_ emerald green, and she laid it out on her bed, gazing at it in wonder. She could only hope to scrub up half as well.

“Max is so right about this place,” Silver remarked. “It changes so fast it makes your head spin.”

Miranda turned him around and gave him a push towards in the right direction. “That, _mon ami_ , is no excuse for your two left feet _or_ for lurking.”

“I wasn’t lurking! I’m waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“My share of the gold.”

“ _Still_?” She couldn’t help it, it was just too hilarious.

“Laugh all you like, Mrs. Evil Mastermind! I _know_ you’re behind it.”

She patted him on the head. “You should’ve known better than to ally yourself with the woman whose partner you tried to cheat out of that gold in the first place.”

His eyes widened. “Well, I’ll be damned!”

Lest he take that seriously, she continued on a more conciliatory note, smoothing her hands down his shirt, “The gold is, of course, yours by all rights.” Was that a new necklace? “And if you really wished to leave, I don’t for a moment doubt your ability to deal with Mr. Dufresne. But something tells me you’re exactly where you’ve always wanted to be, John. Think on that.” Before he could reply, she closed the door.

The assembly was not an instant success, unless your idea of success was two irreconcilable groups of people trading hostile intent. But truth to be told, Miranda had rescued worse dinner engagements.

“You should do the speech,” Silver whispered. He scrubbed up _criminally_ well.

“The one Billy wrote and you tried to pass off as your own?”

“Er, yes. That one.”

She had read it, and it was good, but she had not had the time to memorise it in its entirety. So, the key points.

“We did not start the war.” She imagined addressing her words to Thomas. “The war was started a long way from here. But then it reached these shores, and England retreated, casting these islands adrift, isolated and defenceless. So they became a place to make a living _despite_ , despite everything, from the harsh laws of nature to yet harsher laws of Man. We did not break down the order. It was already broken. What we did and continue doing is seek no deliverance other than what our own blood, sweat and tears can bring.” A lady never sweated, scarcely knew the word, but that was a privilege that she may never regain. “It has not been easy, and it will never be, but united, we stand a real chance of seeing a better tomorrow.”

Pirates and planters. Thomas would have really brought them together, found the right words to reach each and every single one of them.

But at this moment, these would have to do: “Music, please?”

The dinner was actually worth eating. She was enjoying the cheese when the messenger from the tavern came.

“There’s a man asking after you,” Eme whispered.

“What kind of man?”

“English, funny turban, but not one of the Walruses.”

She glanced at Eleanor, who seemed to have settled into her role as a co-hostess, then at Max, who was radiant at it, and finally, at John. “Mind that no one starts a brawl without me, will you?”

He inclined his head. “I’ll kindly remind them to wait for you.”

The office upstairs wasn’t hers in any sense of the word - removing the debris and dust from it had been more of an accident. But she seated herself in the largest chair, amused with herself for what would always feel like a great fraud.

“I hear you’ve gone good on your oldtime threat,” said the visitor. “I’m sorry I’m so late, but here’s the salt.” He dropped the pouch on the desk. “How is it that you don’t have a black cat?”

She stared at Thomas helplessly, silly turban and all. It was _yellow_. “I do have a black cat. He answers to the name ‘Silver’ and he’s been turned human for seductive speech and opposable thumbs. All the better to peel potatoes with.”

Thomas smiled. “Hello, Miranda.”

“Hello,” she echoed, before flinging herself out of the chair and pulling him into an embrace that should have lasted an eternity.

He hugged her back every bit as tightly, repeating that yes, he was back, and yes, this was really happening.

“James?” she asked in a small voice.

“Sulking in your house because I told him his turbans could fool only a blind man. Everyone knows better than him these days, he said.”

She laughed, picturing the look on James’s face perfectly, and kissed Thomas.

“Um, Miranda, there’s been a-”

She laughed into Thomas’s shoulder. “A brawl?”

“Jesus!” Silver stared at them. “So you _can_ bring people back from the dead, after all?” He sounded personally offended that she should have neglected to mention that.

“That she can,” Thomas confirmed proudly. “But no one has died down there, have they?”

“Not yet,” Silver managed.

Miranda’s first guess was the right one - a Guthrie _was_ to blame. Richard was deep in his cups, talking of the good old days and of ghosts roaming his town.

“That would be me?” Thomas guessed, amazed at suddenly being so recognisable.

Miranda took his hand. “How about we _don’t_ do anything clever and just make our escape?” She was going to ruin her best gown - Fate was clearly against her fineries.

“Actually, that _would_ be awfully clever of you,” John complained.

“You’re big boys and girls.” Miranda touched his shoulder. “You’ll sort it out.”

“With your permission, Eme?” Thomas asked.

 

Horse-riding in tightly-laced gowns: perfect in a French novel, highly inadvisable outside of one. Thomas dismounted and helped her down from the horse.

“You’re in a good form,” she noted lightly, concealing her worst fears as to what the past ten years had been like for him.

“I’ve had a good few months.” He kissed her hands, allowing for no contradictions. “Well, apart from not finding you in Boston, that was _terrifying_.”

James, in his turn, was haunting the deserted vegetable patches, holding a raggedy flower arrangement. Oh dear. Yes, the garden _had_ gone to the dogs.

He thrust the flowers at her accusingly. “What a time we’ve missed.” He had let his ponytail grow out again - she could just see Thomas hiding the scissors from him - and he looked nothing like a grim spectre.

She wrapped her arms around both of them - _her boys_ \- and closed her eyes, stunned by this moment. The world had not been so kind to her since she first met Thomas.

They all spoke in fits and starts, trying to communicate too much at once. Thomas had retained a measure of eloquence, so she gathered the barest minimum: he had made serious trouble in Bedlam and had been released, but his freedom had been short-lived. Those enemies that Thomas's horrible father would not cease to rave about - some of them in their own extended family - had thought it very convenient indeed to have him stashed away, a tool against Alfred and his direct progeny. Except, those schemes never came to fruition.

"I had become... a piece of old baggage, I suppose. Or that one item of furniture nobody wants but would not throw away because... Well. Some people are thriftier than the others."

Miranda gasped in horror, bringing him closer again, as if she could protect him now, across all those years.

“Hennessey found him in his latest ‘residence’,” James grumbled.

“The Hennessey who turned his back on you and summarily dismissed you from the service? _That_ Hennessey?”

“Don’t look at me like that, he’s Thomas’s new best mate now.”

Thomas treated her to his trademark look of utmost innocence, which was entirely lost on her without a single light in the house. She was doubly vindicated when Thomas bumped into a chair.

“You know what? I don’t care.” This was still her house, nobody dared to break into it anymore, and the bed remained its only real attraction.

In their previous life, lovemaking had been an elaborate ritual, with its own silly little rules and performances. Now James and Thomas fumbled with her gown like a pair of schoolboys, and she sealed theirs lips with hers as if to brand them against ever disappearing like that again.

She pushed Thomas down on the bedding and ran her hands down his cheeks, his body, remembering what she had once begun to forget. He sat up, picking the pins out of her hair.

“James?” he prompted.

James’s mouth was hot against the back of her neck, hot and whispering _witch_ like the highest praise.

“The Witch Queen, I should say.” Thomas grinned at her. “The Witch Queen of Nassau. Will you take us to be your loyal subjects?”

“Always.” Her words ended in a startled moan as James’s mouth reached the small of her back. “Oh god, yes, please.” Thomas leaned back, pulling her along, and James continued his progress until his tongue was sliding in and out of her body, making her quiver.

She took them in together, Thomas’s hand on her breast and James’s breath in her ear. They didn’t move, not at once, and she stayed there between them, taut, breathless and impossibly safe. Then the urgency spurred them on again, and they sank into one another until they were as waves of the same sea.

“Did I do well?” she asked sleepily, her head resting on Thomas’s shoulder and her legs slung across James’s.

There was only one possible kind of answer to that, and she would like to see them try and get it wrong.

“Oh yes,” James replied, “it was _the_ most awe-inspiring bit of sinning this bed has ever known.”

She drew up her knees to push him off.

Thomas’s chest shook with merriment. “James did say, ‘I knew I should’ve been the housewife’. His words, not mine.”

“Lies and slander!”

“Come now, James, you can cook, you can sew and mend- And tickle like a villain!”

“Well,” Miranda declared magnanimously, "you are _more_ than welcome to stay and revive my garden, James.”

**Author's Note:**

> The quotes are from the inescapable Marcus Aurelius, apart from the Virgil one, the full version being, 'And they leave their lives in the wound'. It's either about rage or about bees, seemed to fit like a glove. Thomas must have thought much on this quote even without the context of their own lives.
> 
> The King is dead, long live the Queens! :D Comments are <3


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